A little birdie told me that an update to the acclaimed PCLinuxOS Preview 8 is in the works and possibly due out next week. Details are a bit sketchy at this time, but it seems Tom has been hard at work updating the hardware detection and mklivecd scripts. Now don't get your hopes up, but I hear it might sport a newer 2.6.10 kernel, including patches to fix a little kvm switch problem. Of course it will include all kinds of application updates and other goodies. More on this as it develops.

Mandrake is apparently joining a consortium to help the advancement of what I think of as distributed computing to the point of and what they are terming clustering. Mandrake has a some previous experience in that arena so maybe they can prove to be an asset. Here's a more in depth article on the subject. They want to harness our cpu cycles, and it sounds like for commercial purposes. Show me the money then I say. Until then, I'm looking for aliens.

Woo hoo Gals, this months Cosmopolitan magazine is chocked full of nice tips and tricks to tantalize even the most frigid of geeks. It looks like Ashley Simpson on the cover, but more importantly are the words: The Power of Pre-sex, Beyond Kama Sutra, His Butt, and 50 Ways to Have Fun With Your Man. I can't wait to try some of this stuff on my man!!!

Yep, just what we need, more spam. Apparently they aren't as concerned with hiding from their isps as getting the mail out as they are now just sending it through their isps servers. Read the gory details here.

Have you seen the previews for Vin Diesels's new movie? He is starring in a soon to be released Walt Disney production co-starring five children! I hope all those tattoos in XXX were stick ons! Well, here's a summary of the flick and here's a shot of the promotional poster. Heck anything with Vin Diesel has got be good!

Here's a story on a board game based on and entitled Doom: The Board Game. This is apparently not breaking news, but I just heard about and got a chuckle over it a few days ago. But hey, I think it might make a neato gift for those diehard doom series lovers, or those who wished they could have played doom3 but couldn't swing the hardware upgrade! Get yours here!

Seems Mr. Gates is at it again with saying one thing while trying to cleverly conceal his jabs at Linux. This time speaking of interoperability amongst differing architectures while stating that doesn't mean open source as open source is detrimental to interoperability. Does that seem backwards to anyone else besides me? This is posted all over the net, but here's one reference at Betanews.

More in Tux Machines

Why open source could be IBM's key to future success in the cloud

Do those same developers need IBM? Developers certainly benefit from IBM's investments in open source, but it's not as clear that those same developers have much to gain from IBM's cloud. Google, for example, has done a stellar job open sourcing code like TensorFlow and Kubernetes that feeds naturally into running related workloads on Google Cloud Platform. Aside from touting its Java bonafides, however, IBM has yet to demonstrate that developers get significant benefits for modern workloads on its cloud.
That's IBM's big challenge: Translating its open source expertise into real, differentiated value for developers on its cloud.

Top 8 Debian-Based Distros

Most people tend to forget that despite Ubuntu's success over the years, it's still just a distro based on another distro - Debian. Debian on its own, however, isn't really well suited for newer users...hence the explosion of distros based on Debian over the recent years. There are lot of great choices for Linux users. Which one is best for you?

Compact, rugged IoT gateway offers dual GbE with PoE

Inforce has launched a $250 “Inforce 6320” IoT gateway that runs Linux on a quad -A53 Snapdragon 410, and offers WiFi, BT, GPS, HDMI, USB, -30 to 85°C support, and dual GbE ports with PoE.
Inforce Computing’s $250 Inforce 6320 is a compact (170 x 95 x 42mm) IoT gateway that runs Ubuntu Core (Snappy) and Debian on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 410E. Inforce promises “periodic upstream kernel based BSP releases [that] include in-depth documentation along with a host of royalty-free software.” The Debian BSP includes LXDE, drivers for all available interfaces, as and access to the Inforce TechWeb tech support services.